8/8/1988 (Dixie)

Life Before Children (LBC).
What was that?

Dim memories surface, then sink back down, like jewels in quicksand.
There they go, those memories...
No, wait!
Sports car leaps out of the mud, blue and gleaming. It grows large, sprouts wings and soars into the clouds. Disco music suddenly fills the air. Oh, oh, Aretha Franklin, Hot Tuna, Boz Skaggs. Waylon Jennings pulls up the commune on a magic carpet. What's that smell? Marijuana, the ocean, plumeria, lasagne. Motorcycle surfaces in roaring splendor, makes a mess, shouts sex and possibility. Sunday sighs, nothing to do but sleep in.
The jewels settle down, dot the surface, and sink
into 8/8/1988.

Death Sat Alone at the End of the Bar Hunched Over a Beer - Maya

Of course, I knew who he was. Who wouldn't? The black hooded cloak was obvious enough, but the long scythe leaning up against the bar was a dead giveaway.

You know, I might have expected to get chills or be struck dumb, frozen in place, but it wasn't like that. He wasn't scary, not like you'd think.

I'd just walked in, shaking the rain off my coat and stamping my boots on the doormat when I spotted him at the end of the bar. i didn't even stop to think about it, but hung up my coat on the rack and took the stool next to his. The thought did cross my mind - who was he here for? Was it me?

"Hello, friend," I said. And then I got the my biggest shock of the night. When he lifted his head to look at me, I saw that he wasn't a he after all. Death was a woman.

She had thick wavy black hair speckled with silver that fell forward out of the hood when she looked up, and her eyes were the bluest blue I'd ever seen. Our eyes locked and neither of us looked away.

"Sometimes I hate my job," she said. No preamble, no social chit-chat. Just that.

"I'll bet," I said. "Who ya here for? Am I allowed to ask?"

"You can ask all you want, I won't tell you. Can't."

"Well, then, can I buy you another beer?"

She looked surprised. "Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."

We sat in companionable silence for a while. It was - I don't know - comfortable somehow. And the funniest thing? No one else seemed to notice.

Prompt, 10/3/09 - Death Sat Alone at the End of the Bar, Hunched Over a Beer